It Ends with Revelations (9 page)

She had invited Tom Albion and his elderly,
still-handsome
wife to share her box. She liked a box for London first nights, so that she could watch the audience and also avoid mingling with it, except for people who knew her well enough to come up to the box in the intervals.

‘Well, here we go again,’ said Tom, as the house lights dimmed before the rise of the curtain. ‘Peter tells me I shall see quite a different play.’

‘You’ll be lucky if you see any play, judging by last night. I’m glad you weren’t able to be there.’

But within ten minutes she had realized that, as so often, the first-night miracle had happened: chaos had been replaced by smoothness. But she did not think anyone was very good; even Miles seemed to her rather quiet. She turned her attention to the audience and decided there was nowhere near the enthusiasm of the previous week’s first night. But she could not detect signs of actual boredom, let
alone hostility. And the applause at the end of the act was good.

‘Much, much better,’ Tom pronounced.

‘It didn’t strike you as a bit tame?’

‘Dear heart, it
needed
taming. I shouldn’t wonder, now, if the damn thing didn’t succeed.’

She looked him in the eye. ‘You don’t mean that, Tom.’

‘I don’t quite
not
mean it. I just don’t know – yet. Come and have a drink.’

But she stayed where she was and chatted to friends who came up. They were all enthusiastic but she never believed a word anyone said on a first night.

The second act was even more tamed than the first. The less spectacular lighting made a surprising difference and there was a general toning down of melodramatic effects. Cyril (now ‘Doug’ on the programmes) remembered his new cuts and not to shout at the end of the act (no spotlight on him now, poor Cyril). Indeed, he mumbled; but Jill had recently decided that audiences no longer expected to hear fully; conditioned by ultra-natural television acting they took it for granted that they just had to guess. Anyway, Miles was superb and the end of the act now belonged to him. The applause, as assessed by Jill, was generous verging on handsome.

In the second interval, having located the Thorntons in the stalls, she beckoned them up to the box. She had arranged to meet them at the stage door and take them to see Miles. Now she had to tell them she wouldn’t be able to. The play was running later than she had expected and
she would need to dash off the minute the curtain fell – ‘Otherwise I shan’t be back to take in the hot food. And I’ve quite a lot to do before the party starts.’

‘May Kit and I come and help?’ said Robin.

‘No, really. It’s sweet of you but you want to go
back-stage
. Miles is expecting you.’

‘We can visit him some other time,’ said Kit. ‘
Of course
we shall come with you. Have you a taxi ordered?’

‘I don’t think you can order taxis to wait outside theatres. I was trusting to luck.’

‘Oh, the commissionaire can manage something. We’ll talk to him now, before the interval ends. Come on, Robin.’

Robin started off, then called back, ‘What time’s the curtain likely to be down?’

Jill made the best guess she could, then looked rather dazedly at Geoffrey Thornton.

He smiled. ‘I know. They can be a bit over-powering. But you really will find they’re a help. I’ll let your husband know what’s happened to them.’

‘And to me, please. He’ll be expecting me.’

During the last act she was more anxious about getting home than about the play, which continued to proceed smoothly. She was out of the box as the curtain fell and had the pleasure of hearing solid applause as she sped from the theatre.

The taxi was there all right, with the two girls standing by its open door. Jill, helped inside so firmly that she nearly fell on her face, had the sensation of being kidnapped.

They reached the flat in time to receive the hot food – or rather, the girls received it, decided it wasn’t hot enough, and put it in the oven. They then got cold food from the refrigerator. Robin, dismissing Jill – ‘Perhaps you’ll want to do a little something to your lovely hair,’ added, ‘Don’t worry about us. We really are terrifically domesticated. We have to be, to run our house with only a little help from a poor dear who used to look after Mother, and now needs looking after, herself. Oh, will Mr Quentin open the champagne? If not, we do know how, even though we don’t drink it.’

Jill said Miles would cope, and then went obediently to tidy herself. ‘And the odd thing is,’ she thought, ‘that I don’t feel irritated by them. I just feel grateful.’

She was even more grateful a couple of hours later, for she realized that, without the sisters, the party would have been a dead failure. There was nothing wrong with the food or the drink, nothing she could blame herself for. The fault lay with the guests, who were quiet to the verge of gloominess and who resolutely refused to circulate. The senior members of the company clung together, preferably around Miles. The stage management remained with the small parts and understudies. Frank Ashton and the author sat together looking both shy and worried. Peter Hesper huddled with the Tom Albions, discussing a prospective job. And Cyril, his understudy and his understudy’s Mum sat together but barely talked to each other, let alone to anyone else – until they were joined by Geoffrey Thornton who, presumably, thought this was the best way he could
pull his weight. Jill went from group to group but did not feel she was proving stimulating. Only Robin and Kit – Robin in her gleaming satin sheath and Kit now in scarlet chiffon – infused some little gaiety. They offered food, replenished glasses, paid compliments and cracked jokes, somehow giving the impression the party was ‘going’. Jill, in the kitchen making coffee, was asked by Robin, ‘Truly, are we over-doing it?’

‘Truly, you’re not,’ said Jill fervently.

‘Then back to the good work. Perhaps coffee will wake them up a bit. Shout when it’s ready.’

‘Most of them are dead tired, poor loves. I hope they don’t stay on and on just out of courtesy.’

It was the understudy’s Mum who made the first move. On being conventionally begged not to break the party up she became – at last – voluble about the complications of her journey home. A few other guests drifted away at the same time. Jill, returning from seeing them off, noticed that Cyril was collecting empty plates and no-longer-needed glasses. Instructed by the Thornton sisters? She went into the kitchen and found they were already washing up.

‘No, no,’ she protested. ‘There’ll be someone to do that in the morning.’

‘But not before breakfast, surely,’ said Robin. ‘And you couldn’t face getting up, with all this about. Thank you, Cyril, but be careful not to sneak glasses from people who are still here. We’ll do all the glasses afterwards, Kit, with fresh water. You can wash, then, because I polish glasses better than you do.’

Jill murmured ‘Angels’ and went back to the party, where she talked to Geoffrey Thornton until the next batch of guests had to be seen off. Cyril pounced on their glasses the instant they moved towards the door.

By two
A.M
. there was no one left but Peter Hesper, the Albions, the Thorntons – the girls still busy washing glasses – and Cyril, whom the Thorntons had undertaken to drive home. Miles said to Tom Albion, ‘Come on, now. What’s your verdict on the play’s chances?’

Tom Albion looked round the room. ‘Author gone, management gone, cast gone? Where’s that boy?’

‘In the kitchen, out of earshot,’ said Jill. ‘Come on, Tom.’

‘Well, if you ask me, the damn thing’s going to be my absolute
bête noire
of plays, a teeterer.’

No one looked puzzled but Geoffrey Thornton, who said blankly, ‘A what?’

‘A play that teeters between success and failure,’ said Peter Hesper. ‘Frank Ashton will probably feel he has to tide it over and wait for it to build.’

‘And he’s liable to lose a lot of money,’ said Tom Albion. ‘And I’m liable to lose a first-rate film contract for Miles. Yet I couldn’t, with my hand on my heart, advise Ashton to cut his losses now. There’s a
chance
of success.’

‘Of course there is,’ said Mrs Albion. ‘You wait till you see the notices. Shall we go out and get the early editions?’

‘Not for me,’ said Miles. ‘I don’t want to sit up all night discussing them. The morning will be time enough.’

‘Anyway, the notices will teeter, too,’ said Tom. ‘And I
doubt if Frank Ashton is over-burdened with courage.’ He turned to Jill. ‘On the whole, I still say what I said originally: three weeks.’

‘Pay no heed to him,’ said Mrs Albion, rising to go.

Peter went with the Albions. The girls stayed until the last ashtray was washed, and then Kit announced that she was going to do what she had longed to, all evening – ‘go out on the balcony and look at the view.’

She took Cyril with her. Even Jill could not feel nervous for them, as the parapet, in their case, came chest high.

‘Marvellous,’ said Kit. ‘I should like to sleep out here. Well, there’s Big Ben calling us home.’

‘And quite time, for shrimps like you,’ said Robin. ‘You’d better go to bed at seven tomorrow and try to grow.’

7

Between Today and Tomorrow

The notices in the morning papers undoubtedly teetered; none were really bad, none fully complimentary – except to Miles and even his were not the kind of ‘raves’ that can sometimes enable an actor to carry a play to success
single-handed
.

‘But at least no one’s feelings are going to be lacerated,’ he said with relief. ‘The author can cherish “promising”, “an ear for dialogue” and “a sense of situation”; and Cyril can chalk up “Doug Digby is a likeable youngster”, “sincere if inaudible” and less painful than the average boy actor.’

‘And the Sunday papers and the weeklies may help,’ said Jill. ‘And of course the word of mouth.’

‘From my own point of view I hope the thing doesn’t run. Oh, I’m not ill-wishing it but that’s how I really feel.’

‘Because you want to do the film?’

‘You know I loathe filming. But somehow the play seems to have gone sour on me. Well, I must churn up some enthusiasm.’

They had arranged to lunch with Peter Hesper. After commenting on the notices he talked mainly about the next job Tom Albion had lined up for him. Jill had often thought that, for directors, a play in rehearsal could occupy every waking hour, and then be shovelled out of mind immediately after the London production. Not that Peter was uninterested in the play’s fortunes, as he was paid a royalty on the
box-office
takings; but he was no longer creatively concerned. He would have disliked holding another rehearsal.

She put in an afternoon and evening on typing thank-you letters for Miles’s first-night telegrams, then called for him at the theatre. He reported that business and booking were, ‘Just what one would expect with a teeterer. Anyway, optimism is the order of the day.’ They then went out to supper. The normal, pleasant pattern of their life was taking over … except that it did not seem quite as pleasant as was normal.

She only fully realized this on the Sunday morning. The notices, again, were neither good nor bad, though bad in as much as they were brief and would do little to advertise the play. She had discussed them, read anything else in the papers that interested her, and then started to weed out the flowers which had died since the night of the party. Becoming conscious that Miles had stopped reading and was following her about with his eyes, she looked at him questioningly.

He said, ‘Let’s face it. Neither of us is happy in this flat.’

No doubt it
was
best to face it. She nodded acceptance. ‘What shall we do, then? Get rid of the flat and find a house?’

‘Running a house would be hell for you, without Mrs Topham. The flat’s easier and I’ll even admit this room has a certain beauty. But I don’t feel I’m living in a home, just a
pied-à-terre
. Suppose we kept it as that, and got ourselves some little place in the country? I’ve been reading property advertisements. One or two cottages sound attractive. I mean for weekends and when I’m between jobs.’

‘You’re never between jobs for long. As for weekends … I doubt if there’d be late enough trains on Saturday nights.’

‘Suppose we got a car and I took up driving again?’

‘Oh, Miles, would you? Could you?’

It was some seconds before he answered. ‘I think so. It wasn’t a question of losing my nerve.’

‘I’ve always thought it was more that you were punishing yourself – for something that wasn’t your fault.’

‘No use thinking about that now. What matters is that I’m willing to drive again. And I daresay you’d like to learn.’

‘I’d have suggested that long ago if you hadn’t said you didn’t even want to have a car.’

‘I know. You may be right about my punishing myself. I was extremely fond of cars and of driving. Well, then, how do we start?’

‘I suppose we consider cars and enquire about cottages.’

‘Just one thing. Will this be of real interest to you? You won’t be doing it simply to please me?’

He was looking at her searchingly. And there was something about his expression that reminded her of that moonlight night a couple of weeks past when he had needed reassurance. Now, as then, she gave it.

‘I shall love it, Miles.’ But she felt vaguely uneasy. He seemed to have something on his mind. And was he perhaps thinking more of her than himself, in planning car and cottage? She had no desire for either. If he really wanted them of course he must have them, but she would take no steps towards them until he raised the matter again.

The next morning she received a letter from Robin Thornton who had already sent a punctilious letter of thanks for the party. The second letter read:

There was a postscript from Kit saying: ‘Robin seems almost resigned to getting a refusal but I’m hopeful because Mr Quentin is so very kind. And we absolutely promise that Julian won’t recite.’ This was signed with a clever little drawing of Kit looking like a cat or a cat looking like Kit; Jill couldn’t decide which.

Miles, after reading the letter, said, ‘Of course we must go – if only to repay the girls for the way they worked at our party. And it’ll be interesting to see the brother. I don’t mind stage-struck youths.’

‘Then I’ll ring up and accept.’

After doing so, while her ears still buzzed with Kit’s excited thanks, she remembered that she had never told Miles about the late Mrs Thornton’s dipsomania. He’d better know now as they were getting on such friendly terms with the Thorntons. He listened with interest, then asked if she thought the girls could have been exaggerating.

She said, ‘Somehow I’m sure they weren’t. And they were perfectly cheerful, kept stressing that it was over for
them, and for their father, too. They said he’d started a new life.’

‘My God, he’d need to. I wonder why they upped and told you? Anyway, do anything you can for them – you’ll have more chance than I shall. Though I could ask them to tea at the theatre and let them explore the stage. That usually interests the young.’

Getting into a taxi on Friday night (she had promised Kit, on the telephone, to arrive an hour before Miles did), she felt inexplicably excited, though a hint of an explanation came to her as the taxi drove past the Houses of Parliament – ‘It’s just that one’s entering a new world’ – she and Miles had no friends unconnected with the theatre. She wondered if Geoffrey Thornton would be inside the House of Commons. No, not in August, surely – though she was as vague about this as about everything else connected with politics.

The taxi was now driving through small, quiet streets of old houses. She felt a pang of loss for the Islington house – these houses were a little like it; but they were smaller, and even older, she thought, and most beautifully taken care of. Impossible to imagine a peeling front door or a broken window here, or any of the encroaching decay amidst which she and Miles had lived for the last years of his lease.

After she had paid the taxi off, she stood outside the Thorntons’ house for a moment before ringing the bell, taking in the quiet street. At one end of it was a blitzed church, looking all the more romantic, against the still faintly luminous sky, by contrast with its well-kept
surroundings. She now found that she was nervous, as well as excited. How absurd! She rang the bell firmly – and it was answered so quickly by both Robin and Kit that it seemed likely they had been at hand waiting for her.

‘Darling Mrs Quentin,’ said Kit, embracing her.

‘You should never kiss grown-ups until they show that they want you to,’ said Robin. ‘Mrs Quentin may not like kissing.’

Jill said that in the theatrical profession most people kissed most people – ‘And I’ll admit that I don’t always care for it. But I’m happy to kiss you two.’ She now kissed Robin and then added, ‘And I’d like it if you’d start calling me Jill.’

Kit said triumphantly, ‘I told you, Robin. She really meant it when she said she’d be our friend.’

Robin said, ‘We want you to come up to our room, if you don’t mind a lot of stairs. This house is so small that we have to make do with the attics. Not that we mind.’

‘No, indeed. We adore the attics.’

They proceeded upwards, not without difficulty as Kit kept her arm through Jill’s and the staircase was barely wide enough for two to walk abreast. On the first floor a door stood open onto a doll’s size drawing room. ‘And that’s Father’s room at the back,’ Kit explained, ‘and up above there’s our spare room and Mary Simmonds’s room – I suppose you
could
call her our help – and then we’re at the top. Do you need a rest’? No? Then on we go. We share a bedroom so that we can have the front attic as a sitting room. It’s really nicer in the winter when
we can have a fire. Of course we carry the coals up ourselves.’

‘It’s nice enough now,’ said Jill, looking round. ‘What a lot of books.’

‘They’re mostly Kit’s,’ said Robin. ‘Not that I don’t like reading some authors, such as Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte and Dickens. But most of Kit’s modern authors are too much for me.’

‘That’s odd, really, seeing that in some ways you’re so much more modern than I am. That’s Robin’s special wall.’

Over the fireplace was a large, canvas-covered board to which were drawing-pinned cuttings from magazines – reproductions of abstract painting, pop art, op art, recipes, extreme fashions in clothes and hair styles.

‘I change the collection every month,’ said Robin. ‘Oh, could you bear to tell me frankly if this dress is too awful? I’m not sure me and me dressmaker didn’t get carried away.’

It was a very short shift of felt, divided into quarters of black, white, grey and blue. Jill could, with sincerity, admire it.

‘I tell her it looks like the flag of some new country,’ said Kit.

‘Father thinks it looks more like linoleum – but then linoleum quite often looks like Mondrian, so it was a sort of compliment.’ She sighed. ‘Of course what it really needs is the
authority
of a great couturier. But me and me dressmaker do our best. What do you think of Kit’s dress?
It isn’t usual for girls of fifteen to wear black but then she’s not a usual girl of fifteen.’

The dress was long-fleeced black wool, trimmed with narrow strips of black rabbit. Jill said, ‘If there was a black cat here I wouldn’t know you from it, Kit.’

‘Oh, lovely! I did want to have a little fur tail.’

‘Me and me dressmaker thought that would be sheer whimsy,’ said Robin, then suddenly swept her long, fair hair up onto the top of her head. ‘I’m considering getting rid of my blinkers.’

‘Do persuade her to, Jill, before she gets run over.’

Jill, realizing for the first time the beautiful breadth of Robin’s brow and her admirable jawline, said
enthusiastically
, ‘Oh, I like it up.’

‘But I feel so much more frail and mysterious, just peeping out,’ said Robin, dropping her veils of hair. ‘And I can always watch the traffic lights. Now I’m talking too much about myself. Do tell us how the play’s doing.’

Jill responded perfunctorily that the business was ‘building’, and proceeded to look round the room. ‘You’ve got so many interesting things.’

‘This is a kaleidoscope,’ said Robin, offering it. ‘You hold it up to the light and you can see fascinating patterns, a bit like kinetic art. It was our great-grandmother’s when she was a child. So was the musical box. Shall I play it?’

‘No, Robin,’ said Kit. ‘It’s nice but it kills conversation.’

Jill was looking through the kaleidoscope, turning it to vary the patterns made by the tiny, brilliant pieces of glass.

Kit said, ‘When I was young it used to sadden me that
patterns went for ever each time you changed them. It seemed like painting a picture and then destroying it. But in a way that’s the beauty of it.’

‘Like the way fashions change and never
quite
come back,’ said Robin. ‘Oh, I do love clothes. I think I have almost a religious feeling about them.’

Kit was now offering a glass paper-weight for inspection. ‘Look, it’s got an old print of Queen’s Crescent on it.
That
was our great-grandmother’s house. We loved it – but I think we love this one more, because it’s so much older. But perhaps you don’t like old houses.’